Measurement & Instrumentation

Visualize This!

Inspiration hits at the strangest times: morning walks with my greyhound, a quiet moment sipping wine, or a busy and hectic day of running errands. It turns out solutions come more easily when I stop thinking about the problem. However, a key component of my ability to visualize solutions is having an understanding of the broader view.

Telling someone else’s story can be challenging. As a designer of Best Practice Guidebooks, I am not involved in the primary research and robust storyboard discussions required to create our guidebooks. When a guidebook is passed to me the researcher must explain everything, in extreme detail and I am responsible for visualizing the story. However, I often find the details distracting and, while it is good to have them, I need the big picture. Working with researchers who have a superior understanding of the subject manner and are able to step back and explain the overall view helps me to create meaningful structures and visuals. When I step back from the details, clarity often ensues.

Understanding the big picture helps me to better visualize graphical solutions to complex ideas. Once I design the concept, the details tend to slip into place within the larger, coheseive structure.

Visualizing text can make presentations more interesting and help your audience grasp the core concept quickly. If you are looking to make your work more visual, more exciting, details are nice to have but if you don’t understand how they all work together, visualizing your text will not be easy. Take a step back from your page and think about what you are trying to communicate.